Dash vault and wallspin |
|
| Nickname(s) | Fri Run, Street Gymnastics |
|---|---|
| Characteristics | |
| Contact | Non-competitive |
| Categorization | Spiritual art, Body art, Philosophical |
| Equipment | Human body, pair of shoes, loose clothing |
| Olympic | no |
Freerunning (or free running) is a form of urban acrobatics in which participants, known as freerunners (or practitioners, though this is a generic term used for freerunning and parkour), use the city and rural landscape to perform movements through its structures. It incorporates efficient movements from parkour, and adds aesthetic vaults and other acrobatics, such as street stunts, creating an athletic and aesthetically pleasing way of moving. It is commonly practiced at gymnasiums and in urban areas (such as cities or towns) that are cluttered with obstacles.
The term free running (now freerunning) was coined during the filming of Jump London, as a way to present parkour to the English-speaking world. However, the term has come to represent a separate concept, distinctly different from parkour — a distinction which is often missed due to the aesthetic similarities. Parkour as a discipline emphasizes efficiency, whilst freerunning embodies complete freedom of movement — and includes many acrobatic maneuvers. Although the two are often physically similar, the mindsets of each are vastly different.[1]
The founder and creator of freerunning, Sébastien Foucan, defines freerunning as a discipline to self-development, following your own way,[2] which he developed because he felt that parkour lacked enough creativity and self-expression as a definition of each freerunner to follow your own way.[3]
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Freerunning was inspired by parkour and developed by urban teenagers, which are considered by the parkour community to be inefficient and not parkour. They may jump from building to building, scale walls, and a lot of other maneuvers that they perform. Initially, the term was used by Channel 4 in their documentaries called 'Jump London' and 'Jump Britain' in an attempt to "translate" the word parkour to the English speaking people. Although Freerunning is a slightly different sport as it is not all about efficiency and is more about an art and finding your own way (be it the use of acrobatics, parkour, etc.). Also, one of the world-wide recognized founders of parkour, Jesus Cardenas said that freerunning is more about finding your own way, and freerunning is what he called his own way.[4] However, as freerunners became interested in aesthetics as well as useful movement, the two became different disciplines. The term Freerunning was created by Guillaume Pelletier and embraced by Sebastien Foucan to describe his "way" of doing parkour.[2] Foucan summarizes the goals of Freerunning as using the environment to develop yourself and to always keep moving and not go backwards.
While Freerunning and parkour share many common techniques, they have a fundamental difference in philosophy and intention. The main aim of parkour is the ability to quickly access areas that would otherwise be inaccessible and the ability to escape pursuers, which means the main intention is to clear their objects as efficiently as they can, while Freerunning emphasizes self-development by "following your way".[2] Foucan frequently mentions "following your way" in interviews,[5] and the Jump documentaries. He explains that everyone has their way of doing parkour and they shouldn't follow someone elses way of doing it, instead they should do it their way. Freerunning is commonly misinterpreted as being solely focused on aesthetics and the beauty of a certain vault, jump, etc. Although many freerunners choose to focus on aesthetics, that is just "their way", the goal however is still self-development. Practitioners might also do certain movements solely for their aesthetic value, the challenge of execution, and as a way of testing oneself physically and mentally, to see if one was 'strong' (hence the Lingala term Yamakasi meaning 'strong man, strong spirit').
Moves specific to freerunning are not easy to define, as most freerunners use a combination of street stunts and parkour techniques. One's own method of freerunning can focus on freedom and beauty of movements, so many parkour techniques, such as vaults, may be carried out in a more aesthetically pleasing way, despite the fact that it may decrease the efficiency of the move.
Street stunts tend to be performed on flat ground or off a height, whereas freerunning movements tend to involve the use of obstacles or the general idea of movement from one place to another.
Due to the nature of freerunning, moves can be subject to the environment as well as ones own interpretation. Because of this there is virtually a limitless amount of "moves" one can perform. Some basic examples of movements which are more likely to be classed as freerunning moves than parkour or street stunts include:
For the list of Parkour Basic Movements see:
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Dash Vault | Vaulting your body over a platform using your arms for forward momentum. |
| Diving Frontflip/Eagle Flip/Superman Flip | A frontflip is executed over a wall or other obstacle, usually with a large drop on the other side. It is referred to as a diving frontflip (or dive front) because the athlete is required to dive over the obstacle before initiating the tuck. |
| Dive Roll | When jumping, dive body forward landing into a roll on ground. |
| Kong Vault/Monkey Vault | Vaulting your body over a railing or platform using your palms for momentum to push off. |
| Reverse Kong Vault | Instead of vaulting over a railing with a Monkey Vault, which may be the most efficient way, the athlete adds a 360 degree spin along the horizontal axis to make the movement more aesthetically pleasing, as well as increasing their coordination. |
| Turn Vault | Vaulting over a wall or platform while turning your body 180 degrees to jump down. |
| Wall Flip | The athlete runs to a wall, places a foot on, and does a backflip off of the wall. |
| Wall Spin | The athlete runs to a wall, jumps, places both hands on the wall, and vertically rotates 360 degrees while remaining in contact with the wall. Pushing off with one hand helps the rotation. |
Another contentious issue that may either continue to make a rift between the parkour and the freerunning communities or possibly strengthen their bond is the idea of professional and amateur competition. From the start the parkour community has been always against the idea of serious competition as it violates the foundations of the philosophy of parkour. Sebastien Foucan mentions in an interview that although they do hold competitions, he doesn't like competition, and it's not "his way", but it may be someone else's "way".[5]
The perceived conflict between freerunning and parkour occurred when the term parkour was translated as freerunning for the English-speaking public, and the perception arose that they were separate disciplines. Some state that freerunning is a variation on parkour, and that the definitions are interchangeable. This argument has validity due to the fact that the creators never specifically defined the disciplines as "separate". Another issue with the competition aspect in parkour or freerunning is the It's focus on not only your physical ability, but also your mental. The focus in parkour or freerunning is not only your physical ability, but as well your mental strength. The word Yamakasi is roughly translated as 'strong man, strong spirit, strong invidual', and this is the core of parkour or freerunning. A part from physical part, which consist of strength, balance, dynamism, endurance, precision, spatial awareness, and creativity and so on, it is also a spirit of being healthy, honest, sincere, helping other people, and doing any sort of challenges whenever It's in your training or in your daily life. Due this mental aspect it is extremely hard to measure how good someone is in parkour or freerunning simply because most if it can't really be measured.
When the Yamakasi, a group consisting of nine original members, Yann Hnautra, Chau Belle, David Belle, Laurent Piemontesi, Sébastien Foucan, Guylain N'Guba Boyeke, Charles Perriere, Malik Diouf and Williams Belle. All of these guys had different backgrounds in both martial arts, dance, and gymnastics. In the beginning, the only name for the discipline was art du déplacement which in English roughly is translated as The art of displacement. The name Yamakasi, which is a Lingala word, loosely means 'Strong man, strong spirit, strong individual: physically, mentally, and ethically' which summed up the philosophy of their discipline. However, art du déplacement was not originally about movements. Physically, it included all sorts of challenges; lifting up heavy objects, throwing objects, crawling on all fours (monkeywalk) for a long period of time and so on.
As they kept on training, they started to involve movements, mainly jumps and vaults. According to Chaü Belle Dinh, in 'Generation Yamakasi' they used to play volleyball with rocks and hang each other out of Dame Du Lac by simply letting one person hang in mid air while two other people held his feet. It was never a real method of training in the beginning but soon it envolved and the media got interested.
Later on, David and Sebastien split from the group, and David called his discipline parkour, and Sebastien called his freerunning. Internet debates and wars about the names started and it became very unclear about the real difference between the three names and/or if there was any difference between them at all. Some people claimed that parkour was about efficient movements while freerunning was adding acrobatics.
However, In the beginning, many of the founding members - Including David Belle - had a background in gymnastics, martial arts, and dancing, and used movements such as Palm spin since day one, but this was, however, only for fun, and their focus in their training was on useful movements. One of the misconceptions is that freerunning is street acrobatics. In various Rendevouz meetings with Parkour Generations the founders have stated various times that they do not care about the names and definitions and that the focus should rather be the training itself, and most importantly the spirit of parkour, (strong man strong spirit, strong individual: physically, mentally, and ethically') rather than wasting time and energy on debates about names and definitions.
Parkour is movement. In a way It's like athletics. It's like the grandfather of all physical skills. It's linked to methode naturelle. So it's really anything you want to do. But what defines it as parkour, and not something else, is the spirit of training. It's your approach to training and your mentality. The spirit is the most important thing;
Not quitting, being really durable, really pushing your limits, overcoming challanges and that sort of stuff. But also It's a spirit of helping others, living for other people, being usefull for other people. Helping your friends, you family, your society, teaching others helping them to understand their potential. So It's kinda ethical movement. And being a good person. The word Yamakasi is a lingala word and means strong man strong spirit, but it doesn't just mean strong as in strong, but strong as in a good person, reliable, responsible, have a good role in society and all that sort of stuff. So it doesn't just mean you're physical hardcore. If you ignore everything else, you're not considered as 'good' in parkour.
- DAN EDWARDES, SFPK (SAN FRANCISCO PARKOUR), QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
In France, we use the Art Du Déplacement. Sometimes you have parkour and freerunning. In Denmark It's Streetmovement. Just to use what you want I don't care for that. Parkour Generation and Yamakasi don't want you to do the copy. I want you to believe in your name.
- CHAÜ BELLE DINH, AMERICAN PARKOUR RENDEVOUZ, QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
We have to be as a community. Not like 'Uh, we're better, we start before...' Because we do the same. Italy will do the same, Spain do the same.. It's not about this. We don't have to copy like in martial arts or dancing with battles. It's not about this. We can be unified as a community. [...] It's about learning something for you. It's not like, fighting. We're here to learn. Until we die. Learn, learn, learn, learn.
- SEBASTIEN FOUCAN, ICELAND PARKOUR TRAINING
...In case you have a problem, for yourself, to protect yourself,your family, It's like soldiers training more extended to urban areas. And from this, kind of developed freestyle parkour which we see more of now where guys jump with twists, things that are completely not usefull. But I understand because it's like skateboarding or rollerblading, It's at it's core made for freestyling but there is no usefull side to it. While parkour is ONE SIDE usefull for people to learn to have confidence in themselves and learning to be carefull. Because there are some they say 'Oh my god! They are crazy!, so we become more conscious of those who are going to hurt themself falling down the stairs when they are not carefull.
- DAVID BELLE, INTERVIEW BY BABYLON A.D. DIRECTOR MATHIEU KASSOVITZ
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